


love isn't always magic

by antpelts



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:33:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25761415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antpelts/pseuds/antpelts
Summary: The universe made mistakes.Mistakes that ran deep, riverbeds down mountainsides, that lingered long after the water dried up leaving dusty dirt behind. There were softer mistakes too, smaller ones. Maybe just oversights, nothing to think too hard about.// evan hansen and jared kleinman were never promised a soulmate
Relationships: Evan Hansen/Jared Kleinman
Comments: 15
Kudos: 51





	love isn't always magic

**Author's Note:**

> hhh............. this sorta just came to me

The universe made mistakes.

Mistakes that ran deep, riverbeds down mountainsides, that lingered long after the water dried up leaving dusty dirt behind. There were softer mistakes too, smaller ones. Maybe just oversights, nothing to think too hard about.

Evan was sure he was a riverbed, baked and cracked from the sun, pebbles strewn about, deposited and left alone to warm under the noon light, to burn any hands who tried to pick them up. The pebbles never moved. The smooth flat rocks never moved. The river left them there for a reason. There _had_ to be a reason.

His lack of a soulmate was just an oversight. Or maybe it was genetic. His mom had whispered plenty of reassurances in the dark while he sat up in bed asking _‘why, why?’_ because he wondered if he did something wrong before his age even hit double digits. Did the universe not find him worthy? Did the stars not love him enough to give him a love of his own? It was something he’d carried for years until he finally fell.

Not for anyone else.

The falling wasn't beautiful or poetic. It hurt. It was numb. It ached. It left him in a hospital, it left him with stiff plaster on his arm. 

That was the year he took a deep breath and steadied himself and tried to just quiet his brain as it worked overtime to find answers that didn’t exist. It hurt less to assume it was just an oversight. Being forgotten was something he knew well, being forgotten was less painful than being unworthy. So he took the idea and ran.

The universe forgot to give him someone he could curl around and fit perfectly against and intrinsically understand. His mom turned out fine. Others turned out fine. He’d turn out fine.

He turned out fine.

Even if he felt he’d never understand or be truly understood.

When Jared asked how he was, a year later, a conversation on a porch with the chill of winter surrounding them he smiled and said back, “I’m fine.”

He was.

Jared had tucked his hands in his pockets, he rocked on his heels. The second before every little fidget Evan swore he saw it coming - a seven day weather prediction. Hands would twitch, shoes would shuffle, a wrist would flick to emphasize a word. A year of absence crashed over him all at once and he wasn’t even sure of what Jared was saying anymore because his lip quivered and his eyes were welling with tears. The wind carried snowflakes and threatened to freeze tear tracks to his cheeks. And then Jared’s. Inevitably his own shoulders shook in tandem with Evan’s and he was laughing and shaking his head and inviting Evan inside.

They stood a foot apart, holding onto mugs of hot chocolate that went cold as they recounted the few stories they gathered that the other didn’t yet know.

It carried on through the night. When Jared’s parents came home, shaking snow off their shoulders and bursting with questions about Evan’s sudden appearance, they crept up the stairs with promises to catch up. But later. Later.

This time was theirs for now. 

This time they weren’t a foot apart as they climbed onto Jared’s bed. Their knees touched, they both gestured so wildly sometimes fingers would meet midair and they’d realize how animated they’d gotten. They laughed - Evan wasn’t sure of the last time they’d laughed _together._ The sun set early, dragged down under the winter horizon. Evan texted his mom, assurances of his safety and excitement over his hope, hope presented to him in the form of Jared because maybe he wasn’t alone. They were always a little opposite, but parallel. Both trapped under the weight of _alone._ Neither of them were made with the promise of a soft and easy love, neither of them were waiting for their other half to complete them. 

Eventually, they accepted that hole as less of an absence and just as part of themselves.

They bonded over it, over an assumed lack of love.

Because how could the stars make mistakes? How could the sun do something wrong? How could the moon not mean what she said?

Jared went back to school and Evan stayed home. They had work and classes but they laid in their separate beds, phones cradled to ears as they recounted their days. Nothing and everything was different. They whispered to each other in the dark before one of them dozed off, often it was Jared. Funnily enough he’d always been a night owl but insomnia crawled into Evan’s twin bed clutching his shirt and slotting up to his side, weighing him down. Jared’s breaths whispered through his speaker, a soundtrack as he made wishes on fading glowstars, over a decade old now. Wishes and questions.

The sun would rise and he’d find sleep, just for a little while.

Some days his phone would be quiet. Some days their tones didn’t carry and they’d shrink back from each other. Sometimes it would last a week until one finally folded and called, even if it was to just lay in silence together because they didn’t even know what was wrong. They were built up differently and often clumsy with each other, they didn’t intrinsically know what the other needed but they wanted to. Even if they didn’t know how to say it. They let the quiet speak instead, breaths over the phone in the heavy darkness of _3 am_ that replaced whispers of _‘I’m sorry’_ or _‘are you okay’_ or _‘I want this to work’_ because they never really knew how to communicate. So they had to build their own radio towers and scan frequencies to try and get on each other’s wavelength. 

It didn’t always work, but they were trying.

When spring arrived to lift the weight of winter off their shoulders it moved in and out like the tide. Melted snow before another temperature drop. One day warm enough for shorts and the next with a breeze that begged for the heat to kick back on. By the time Jared came back - _this_ time - the snow stayed melted, the grass softened as the dirt unfroze into mud.

It was messy at first, and they didn’t have as much time, a mudslide scrambling to make sure the connection was still strong. That it would still carry across the distance when Jared was gone again. A countdown as soon as Jared parked in his driveway. One week of spring.

They sat in swings at the park down the block - Jared’s spring break didn’t line up with the local one so even in the early afternoon it was empty. Which meant there wasn’t much to look at. But looking at Jared was dangerous because it made Evan feel languid and heavy in a way that he didn’t quite understand. He didn’t have vocabulary to think about the _‘why’_ of it. And he didn’t have to.

Because Jared looked at him first.

So Evan didn’t have to feel bad about staring. His hair was a little longer, messier. At one point he’d mentioned how he got a bad haircut early last fall on campus and he only trusted his barber at home. But Evan wondered how long his hair would get because every afternoon they held each other’s company in their hands. If Jared was in front of him he wasn’t sitting in the barber’s chair, silently Evan wondered what it meant to be more important than a haircut. Silently Evan tried to tell him _I don’t know how to cut hair’._ He tried to project it to Jared to take an afternoon away and get his haircut, to get what Evan couldn’t give him. There was so much that Evan just couldn’t give - so why wasn’t Jared getting it when he could? It took three days into Jared’s spring break for Evan to wonder if this was about more than a haircut.

Regardless he laid in bed watching videos on how to cut hair the same day Jared left in his car, Evan waving, reflected in his rearview - steadier than the wiper that brushed the spring rain away from his windshield. There was a silent promise, a _‘I’ll wait for you to be back’_ rocking back and forth until Jared was so far away Evan couldn’t be more than a dot behind him.

As the days got longer and warmer their calls fell off a little. Jared was knee-deep in essays and tests. Evan could respect that. He’d spent the first half of the year learning that sometimes a forgotten phone call was just that, a forgotten phone call. It didn’t have to mean anything more, Jared never meant it as anything more. No hidden messages that Evan didn’t know how to pick apart. 

They opened all the lines between them carefully. Jared could still lash out and Evan could still shrink away, growth was slow but the flowers bloomed through the spring. And progress wasn’t linear, they slipped up, the petals of the flowers curled up in the shade. But the first time Jared said he missed him silent tears fell that would keep the blossoms watered for weeks to come.

Evan returned the sentiment easily and they kept talking about nothing until they fell asleep. When Evan woke up to gentle sunlight his phone was hot against his cheek, call still running. For some reason hanging up felt wrong.

When Jared came back again it was easier. He had a farmer’s tan and his hair was messy and shaggy, slightly framing his face. It made Evan want to touch it while they were sprawled on Jared’s bedroom floor in front of a box fan. He wanted to brush it back from his forehead, to push it away from his eyes. He rolled onto his side, catching the quirk of Jared’s brow. He was laying on his back, arms crossed behind his head, the pose causing his sleeves to ride up. The split between his warm tan and usually pale skin was so obvious it looked silly. Before he could say something his gaze flickered to meet Jared’s because he was rolling over too, now. He kept one arm tucked under his head, looking between Evan’s eyes. Looking for something neither of them knew how to name. 

“If you wanted to look for a different job there’s stuff on campus- like, not just college related. So even if you don’t want to do classes there’s something you could do.”

“Huh?”

“If you wanted to come with me.”

Evan had forgotten that conversation, convinced it was just a fleeting thought, a pipe dream. He opened his mouth to respond but no sound came out, his face contorting through a messy range of emotions that seemed to give Jared the wrong idea.

“I know it’s late to try and do classes for the fall there. Well, late for scholarships. But you could start in the spring if you wanted. Work for a semester? My apartment’s in a good spot downtown.”

Now he was rambling, words falling rapid-fire from his lips. Their gazes broke apart, Jared’s going far off. Evan knew he needed to say something but his brain could barely process the thought of living with Jared.

“You don’t have to. I just thought since you-”

All the thoughts cut off as Evan finally got himself to move, he still needed a second before he could get out any coherent words but he _could_ reach out a hand. One of Jared’s hands was settled, palm against the carpet, between them. Evan settled his own on top of it. They stuck together with sweat, but it wasn’t nerves. It was just the cocoon of summer heat threatening to swallow them both - because Evan never had felt so sure about anything before.

“I want to.”

The rest of their afternoon passed in a lazy quiet, hands stuck together the whole time as they both drifted into naps. Cats sprawled in sunbeams. Jared’s carpet was itchy on Evan’s cheek and even their slight contact was suffocatingly hot but he didn’t want to break it. The moment felt so fragile. So important.

There were more afternoons like that. It evolved into nights like that. Somewhere along the line that one integral afternoon twisted into Evan curled up on Jared’s bed. Their jeans were in piles on the floor, a fan as close to the bed as its cord would allow. Moonlight cut through the blinds and settled over them since it was too hot for blankets. Jared would set his hand between them and Evan would take it, looking at how the moonlight fell over the soft curve of his cheek. Now that he’d gotten a haircut the strands couldn’t fall over his face to shield his eyes. They met gazes in the low light once they ran out of words or were too tired to form any more. Jared’s palm was warm while Evan’s fingers were almost always cold.

Their parents didn’t say much of anything to them when they moved in together. Heidi had sent an air mattress along with him though, assuring him it was more comfortable than the futon in Jared’s one bedroom apartment. Evan didn’t have the heart to say he didn’t need it. And he didn’t know _how_ to say it. They tucked the box under Jared’s bed as soon as Heidi left to drive home.

When they laid down that first night it felt different than how Evan had shared his bed the whole summer. It was the unacknowledged switch from _Jared’s_ to _theirs._ With the air conditioning keeping the room cool they were able to hook their legs together, the new touch of skin to skin made something well up in Evan. Laying in the dark, not wanting to sleep but not wanting to shatter the silence. It built and built until Evan couldn’t stop himself, gaze flickering up to meet Jared’s. There was something expectant there like he somehow knew Evan wanted to speak.

“I think I need you,” it came out gently, barely more than a breath. It hung between them, so soft yet so vast.

“‘s not true,” Jared said gently, Evan felt his stomach drop but he knew there was truth there. Jared always wanted to see things for what they were. They weren’t soulmates, he didn’t _need_ Jared. And Jared didn’t _need_ him. Before he could try and take it back Jared was talking again, voice steady, “but you can say it.”

“I need you,” Evan whispered in response. Jared was quiet this time, closing his eyes. Evan could sense a movement coming but he didn’t know what. Closing his own eyes he pictured the glowstars on his ceiling back at home, silently wishing in the split second that _whatever_ Jared did that he just didn’t move away.

Maybe the stars were feeling generous because when Jared was shifting it wasn’t away. The mattress creaked as he inched closer, dipping under his shoulder. Their breaths mixed in the much smaller space between them now. It kept shrinking. Shrinking until their lips were pressing together. Evan was pulled towards him like the tide to the moon and- maybe the moon was in on this too. The universe looking down over them and letting them have this fleeting moment.

Except it wasn’t fleeting.

And it wasn’t the stars or the moon or even the sun looking out for them.

It was him and Jared.

The stars didn’t make Jared roll over in bed and slot up under Evan’s arm. The moon didn’t coax Evan closer until his lips pressed against Jared’s (before bed, after waking up, in the kitchen). The sun cast light across the bedroom but it didn’t tell Jared to get up early and make breakfast.

It was all their own.

When the fall chill started to creep in they curled up under blankets. Hand holding that evolved into tangled legs now changed into intertwined bodies. Jared had always said he hated cuddling, like he was trying to prove a point. Like he was putting a wall up, if he said he didn’t need love then it would hurt less when it never came. Evan knew that all too well. But Jared easily fell into bed with his back pressed to Evan’s chest. He tried not to notice.

Kisses turned longer. Evan made coffee in the mornings. They shared clothes. Arguments crept in but they faded away when they fell into each other’s arms with whispered apologies. They knew each other far too well, they knew they didn’t mean it. It wasn’t easy but it was all them.

At some point, when the first snow of the season fell, a thought cropped up. They were in bed, Jared snoring softly against his chest. Blinking up at the blank ceiling the words just sort of formed in his head, drawing a realization over his eyes. He didn’t mind not having a soulmate. Those pipe dreams of a soft, quiet love weren’t that appealing anymore. He didn’t want a stranger set in front of him who he was _supposed_ to love. He liked to get messy. When Jared didn’t understand him it helped him understand himself a little more. Jared helped him change. Jared helped him be _better._ It wasn’t like he was doing this all because some arbitrary force told him he had to.

Jared chose him. Over and over.

All Evan wanted to do was return the favor.

And he did.

The second snow passed, then the third. Days grew shorter and colder. They spent most of their free time in bed, trying to keep the warmth between them safe under blankets and connected bodies. For all his anxieties and planning Evan could never see this coming, words falling off his own lips before he could decide if it was a good idea.

“I love you.”

Jared didn’t react for a minute. Evan didn’t blame him.

They weren’t supposed to be, it was fair to leave him ignored. Jared wasn’t his.

“I love you.” It came nearly five minutes later, long after Evan accepted that this was never something he could have.

They didn’t have soulmates. They weren’t built to love.

Right?

Instead of asking questions they just kissed, rolling around in the sheets until the first rays of sunlight broke over the horizon.

When they finally woke up, late in afternoon, Jared was complaining. Evan just smiled, of course he was. He only faltered into concern when Jared held his left hand up, pointing to a red mark on the side of it, below the joint of his pinkie. He claimed it itched and Evan had to pry his fingers away before he could claw nail tracks against it. Holding Jared’s hand in his own he pressed his thumb over the mark, suggesting that it may be a bug bite. Jared threatened the imaginary culprit, threatening to call exterminators. They couldn’t help but laugh at their own absurdity.

As they came down Evan pulled his hand away, only stopping when Jared tugged it back.

“Hurts less when you touch it.”

Without a second thought he gently pressed his thumb down against the spot, watching how his shoulders drooped in relief. Evan didn’t claim to know much about most things but he was fairly versed in bug bites and rashes — it was useful for camping and hiking! — but the mark didn’t look like anything he knew. Instead of getting himself worked up he took a breath, running through his grounding tactics: list facts, things that are real. Jared was here, they were home, it was Saturday, Jared loved him. He probably pinched it against the bed frame, he was prone to those things.

The moment passed quietly and by lunch Jared just absentmindedly rubbed the little welt as he watched Evan throw together lunch from his perch on the counter. Silence settled over them like a blanket, keeping them warm in their comfort, it was only broken by the thump of Jared’s heels against the cabinet as he swung his feet. The steady rhythm was joined by a quiet sizzle as the cheese on the grilled cheese Evan was working on melted down around the bread onto the pan. If Evan had to assign a sound to domesticity he was sure it would be this. A bliss he’d never thought he’d be able to know flooded him, making him feel a little fuzzy and-

“Shit- fucker!” Drawing his hand back Evan cradled it to his chest, digging his nails in to distract from the sting.

“Did- hey,” Jared jumped off the counter, turning the burner off before reaching out to close his hand over Evan’s. “Did you burn yourself?”

Honestly, he wasn’t sure. He wanted to say know, his brows drawing together in confusion as he let Jared pull his right hand towards himself. Turning it in his own he squinted a bit, looking at the mark. When he glanced up Evan shook his head. The only response he got was a quizzical hum as Jared pressed his left palm to Evan’s right, locking their fingers together. Nearly immediately the sting faded to a dull ache and he watched Jared lean his head to the left, looking at the outside edges of their hands.

“Dude.”

Evan followed suit, mirroring Jared easily. When he looked at their hands he just sort of blinked, eyes flitting up to meet Jared’s gaze. For once he looked utterly befuddled, glancing between their hands and him. It took a second but all of Evan’s breath rushed out of him in a shuddering heave, his grip tightening on Jared’s hand. With their palms pressed together the splotchy marks made a crude heart. Now, a few hours later it seemed like Jared’s red patch was starting to fade into what looked like a pale birthmark. Evan’s was still red and burning, though Jared’s touch helped keep the pain low. It was almost as if they’d heated their own coal bed and forged their own brand, pressing the iron of their love to each other’s skin.

“I thought..”

For a while, when Evan longed endlessly for normalcy, he’d extensively read about the nature of soulmates. None of it was widely understood but even less so was the concept of _gaining_ a soulmate. There seemed to be a lot of debate around it, a rare occurrence. No one could really say _how_ rare though, there were so many people who probably never came forward, or people who they couldn’t prove were providing the truth. 

They’d built their own little anomaly. 

They broken over the event horizon, wading into uncharted shores.

They’d hold hands so neither of them floated away - so neither was washed out to sea.

They’d guide each other home.

They were each other’s home.

Together they’d crafted their homestead. It was them who chopped the wood, who poured the foundation, who laid the supports. 

A rickety house became a steady home.

“I mean- I’ve read about this but- but it just seemed..” Evan didn’t need to finish the thought because he _knew_ that Jared knew every possible thing he could have said in that moment.

So they didn’t say more. They ate their lunch and poured over articles, hands connected to soothe the sting of their becoming.

They won.

In the end they won - pitted up against the sun, the stars, the moon. The very universe looked down on them and she’d whispered _‘I’m sorry but this love’s just not made for you.’_ So they made their own. Hand in hand they looked back at the universe - the pinhole glow of stars, the harsh burn of the sun, the crescent shine of the moon - and they called out to her ever heavy presence over their heads, _‘hey, show-off!’_ She’d looked down on them with pity at first, remembering when they were clumsy and odd and didn’t quite get it. Now they were steadied by each other, not backing down when faced with her council. The stars started tittering from their brashness, _‘what is it?’_ It was followed by the moon’s honeyed tone, _‘didn’t you hear?’_ In an attempt to solidify the inevitable, the sun was loud and glowing and harsh, _‘this isn’t supposed to be yours to take.’_

 _‘We didn’t take it,’_ they silently responded, _‘we made it.’_

It culminated into the universe echoing around them - confused yet not displeased - bending and cracking at the edges as she granted it to them.

They could only laugh though, sprawled in each other’s arms in the winter dark apartment they shared. 

Because they didn’t need to be granted their love.

As they’d said in their taunting challenge.

_We made it._

How could they be granted what they crafted with their own hands? They played the game and won. But the prize wasn’t what they were after, no, they proved that the marks didn’t matter. It was their own stubbornness, their own conviction, their own belief in each other.

All they wanted was to come out on the other side together.

And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> kudos n comments mean the world <3


End file.
